


The Lives and Loves of Louis Tomlinson

by shoulderbladesarewings



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:24:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3631407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoulderbladesarewings/pseuds/shoulderbladesarewings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis looks back on his life and his time with Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lives and Loves of Louis Tomlinson

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my english coursework about a year ago so there are no names, but I kind of liked the way it turned out so thought I'd post it. Yes, I wrote about Larry Stylinson for my english coursework. Hope you like it.

When I look back, I see light.

   By the time I was twenty-five, I’d lost most of my eyesight. Even now, ten years later, there is still a silver film over my eyes, blurring everything. And when I shut myself in darkness, close my eyes and try to remember, all I can see is an endless stretch of blinding, bright, unbearable light.

   Most of it is the flashes. Cameras followed us everywhere we went, taking one hundred shots a minute in a desperate attempt to find one that would ruin us. For the first couple of years we were firmly told to keep our heads down, but when the fans started to complain, clamouring to see our ‘flawless’ faces, that order was swiftly revoked, reversed and reapplied, in that order. We couldn’t disappoint our fans. Without them, we were nothing. You are nothing without fame, you see. It took me a long time to accept that.

   The rest of it, though, is him.

   He had blue eyes. I remember them as gold but I know that they were blue because I used to call him Inky. Or maybe that was for the clothes he used to wear, startlingly black against his sugar-white skin. Or maybe it was for his tattoos, each one a piece of us: a ship on his arm to match the compass on mine; a tweaked lyric from the first song we’d danced to; three nails, one for each time he’d seen me kiss my girlfriend.

   There were more, but I don’t remember them.

   Maybe he had grey eyes.

   We never told anyone. He wanted to, and every day for six years he begged me until his voice broke to let him tell them. I can still hear him, low and urgent: _but_ _I_ _love_ _you_ _so_ _much_.

   Eventually, he stopped begging. He didn’t even protest anymore when I slipped out of our bed in the small hours to return to my girlfriend, who was everything we weren’t: safe, clean, clueless. I married her in the end - a church and a priest and no protesters screaming that we were going to Hell. You may now kiss the bride. God bless you. Amen.

   I don’t know if she knew. I like to think she didn’t. She was too young and too sweet to suspect - and in any case, she thought I was perfect.

   She told me on our wedding night, the same thing she whispers every day as her arms snake around my neck like a rope: _I_ _am_ _so_ _lucky_.

   _No,_ I force out, choked by her perfume (jasmine and lavender, the bottle I buy her every year for her birthday), _I_ _am_.

   _I_ _love_ _you_.

   _I_ _love_ _you_ _too_.

   His eyes were green.

   After our honeymoon, I texted him. _I_ _want_ _you_.

   I wish I’d called him. I don’t know why I didn’t call him.

   He left me a note. He said he was sorry and that he loved me, in the same way he always talked; like he was tweeting, with only so many words before he’d get cut off. It went like this:

   _I’m_ _sorry_. _I_ _loved_ _you_.

   All I could think for the next six months, as I rocked and drank and fought for the strength to destroy myself, was _Why didn’t you tell me?_

   I ran away. I couldn’t take their questions; questions they couldn’t possibly have been allowed to ask: _Did_ _you_ _know?_ _How_ _could_ _you_ _not_ _have known?_ _Why_ _didn’t_ _you_ _try_ _to_ _stop_ _him?_ The flashes, so much crueller now he wasn’t standing beside me, bearing the brunt of it as he always had. Why had I never realised how much he’d suffered to make me happy?

   I collapsed on the stage six times before they released me from my contract and told me to take care of myself. They gave me enough to live on, and it wouldn’t have been enough if they hadn’t given me his share too. I took it for her, so that I could give her at least a shadow of the life she deserved.

   And so here we are. Here I am, mostly sitting on the balcony and sifting through what little of my memories remain. Occasionally I feel something. Mostly pain. It is all that is keeping me alive.

   I wrote him a note the other day. It took me two hours and when I was finished I tore it to shreds and let them slip from my fingers into the wind, free in a way that we could never have been, not in this life.

  Over the years I have stolen his speech pattern, like I used to steal his clothes when he was mine.

   _I’m_ _sorry_. _I_ _loved_ _you_ _too_.

   Definitely green. I think.


End file.
